


An Unfortunate Coincidence

by ddotmac



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: I've been sitting on this idea for a while and it got a little convoluted so, alternate s17 ending, and i don't know what to tag this as, contains mild s16-17 spoilers, i finished this around the time that i got really into good omens, i'm derailing canon like a brick wall on a train track, it sounds much better that way, kind of, present tense but shh just trust me, so just imagine that the narrator is frances mcdermott
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-31 14:23:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20116537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ddotmac/pseuds/ddotmac
Summary: The Reds and Blues aren't the only ones who tried to stop Wash from getting shot.





	An Unfortunate Coincidence

**Author's Note:**

> Recommended listening / very loose inspiration: Yes You Are by Case Jackal  
https://youtu.be/g71-4X2dUsc?t=38

When Locus got his hands on one of the time travel guns, it spelled danger for everyone in the galaxy.

Firstly, because he never learned about the nature of paradoxes in this universe, and secondly, because there were a great many things he did not know about himself. The powers that be had not yet decided it was time, but the moment it entered his playing field, it was no longer their decision to make.

He pondered testing it out, but believed that perhaps it only works once and he did not want to waste a valuable opportunity to fix one of his mistakes. He spent hours wondering where him and Felix went wrong, if it would be possible to pinpoint that moment and change how it went.

In the end, he decided to prevent Wash from getting shot. It seemed, to him, the most direct culmination of all of his mistakes, and he could not think up a feasible way to prevent what happened on Chorus.

Besides, he loved the Reds and Blues dearly, and in some way that he knew was twisted and selfish, he wouldn't have met them if it wasn't for that particular atrocity of his, and he didn't want that to happen.

This event mostly spelled danger for Genkins, who, in his infinite wisdom, knew for sure that this would be the first thing Locus did upon obtaining the gun. This, in turn, would create a whole new set of paradoxes; not ones that were helpful for him, but ones that would skew the whole timeline by way of throwing the original paradox off-kilter. It was up to him to stop that from happening.

Of course, he couldn't just kill Locus, and so had to settle for going back to the event and sorting it out from there.

It may help set the stage a bit to list some of the facts of this scenario.

Number one, Locus does not know who or what Genkins is, because he has not had any communications with the Reds and Blues since the paradox first occurred.

Number two, Genkins is not actually trying to get Wash shot, just prevent Locus from taking the shot in his stead.

Number three, Locus has very limited information about what is actually within Genkins's means and how he can and cannot interact with shisnos.

Number four, Locus has no concept of what a shisno is.

Number five, Genkins knows that Locus is friends with the Reds and Blues but very little else about him.

Number six, Locus understands that he is in the past of the same timeline trying to create an alternate scenario to Wash getting shot, but not what the consequences will be for doing so.

Locus has thrown himself in front of Wash, still delirious from his plight, but doesn't know where the bullet will come from. Genkins has deigned to do away with the soldier who was supposed to shoot Wash and shoot Locus himself, forgetting in his brief panic that he is incapable of hurting a shisno.

But then the moment is over, and Locus collapses to the ground, a sharp bark of pain emerging from deep in his throat. The gun nearly slips from Genkins's hand and he sprints away into the corridor.

Genkins understands that this should have activated a paradox, and it did not. He believes this, along with the fact that he was capable of hurting Locus, to mean that he is actually somebody else disguised as Locus. This is untrue.

In a moment of clarity, Wash looks down at Locus and screams, "What are you doing?! Get to cover!"

He grabs him by the shoulders and hauls him away behind a barrier. Donut glances up and quickly panics, and comes over to investigate. "Why were you out there? What happened?" Wash shouts, hands nervously fluttering over Locus's injuries.

"I-I was just," Locus struggles for breath, "I wanted to save you, I-I thought maybe--"

"There's nothing you can do," Wash interrupts, saddened because he is reminded of the trauma he must endure for the universe and also because he knows that Locus believes it should have been him.

We'll come back to that.

"But how did you get shot in the chest?" Wash asks exasperatedly. At this point, Donut has begun removing Locus's chestpiece and dressing his wounds, apologizing for the sting when he hears Locus hiss. "The shot should be around the neck, even for you."

Not processing why Wash knows that because he's rather busy focusing on the bullets in his chest, Locus sputters, "That soldier in the green shot me," and they both freeze. Donut draws his hands away slowly, backing up against the wall as far as he can get. "What?" Wash seems similarly perturbed, and reaches the same conclusion in slightly more time. "Do you not believe me? I'm--"

"Not a shisno," Donut interrupts, voice barely audible over the sound of gunshots.

It may have come to your attention that a few important details have been left unsaid to the participants of this conversation that are causing a great deal of confusion for all of them. Firstly, Wash and Donut are aware that Locus has come from the future to change this event, but Locus does not know that they know this. He also does not know that they, too, are from the post-paradox future and are attempting to reconcile this event, if only in a slightly different fashion on both accounts. Wash and Donut are both aware that this transgression should have caused a paradox, and have yet to figure out why it did not. The actual reason is because Locus's act counts as divine intervention, for which he should be in all kinds of trouble, but they will all find this out later.

A long moment goes by where Locus stares at them in confusion. "A what?"

Presently, Wash has a gun trained on Locus, in spite of the fact that he is clearly already injured and not going anywhere fast. "Cut the shit. If you're not a shisno, then what are you?"

"I've never heard that word before," Locus grinds out between teeth gritted in pain. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Another thing that almost certainly should have caused a paradox in this situation is that because Locus traveled back using the time gun and not through the Everwhen, there are presently two of him in this scenario. The other is still in combat, not noticing his surroundings, because the thing that he was supposed to do - take Wash to the hospital after he had already been shot - was never initiated, and as such, he is still blasting off kneecaps without a care in the world. This could be explained away by the idea that Locus did not come into his power until the moment he was shot, but we will call it an unfortunate coincidence for the moment.

"Oh dear, you've made quite a mess, haven't you?"

This voice Donut and Wash recognize as belonging to Kalirama. Locus does not. They all go immediately on guard nonetheless, with Locus feebly drawing his sword, other arm slung across his chest loosely. The world around them fades and he sees the woman - tall, four-armed, and generally terrifying - strident and slender in the chair from which he still towers over him. "What do you think you're--" She looks up from her nails and really, finally sees him, and she frowns. "Oh."

Locus is breathing hard and staring at her now, slumped on the ground and sword still bared. She sighs and waves a hand, and Locus's injuries disappear.

At this moment, he's starting to think that perhaps he really is crazy, that Felix was right about everything all those years and he's losing his mind as he lays dying on the battlefield. The time travel thing on its own was a bit of a stretch, but--

"You're not crazy," Kalirama says calmly. "I promise this is all very real." He staggers to his feet, holding the sword up as though for protection. She laughs, and it's very earnest, somewhere between watching a child playing with sticks and being challenged to a duel by the child. "I wasn't expecting to see you in this body."

Locus sputters indignantly, and Kalirama struggles to remind herself that this is all a part of the process. "Oh, Chrovos won't be happy about this," she sighs, placing her chin in two of her hands. "You weren't supposed to appear for a very long while."

"What's.." He seems to be, very literally, at a loss for words. "What's.. going on?"

Kalirama leans forward, so that he is unable to look away from her face, her luminescent hair, her deep, pupil-less eyes, her bone structure that is just slightly too odd to be human. He moves to defend himself subconsciously, holding his shoulders tight and knees locked - sloppy form, she thinks. She looks into his eyes all the same, grasps that fear with two fists. He has every right to be terrified.

"Sam Ortez, you are a god."

Now he is quite sure he's hallucinating.

Locus has been called so many things in his life, most of them derogatory. He is turning them over in his mind now, much more than the positive things. Even of the positive things he can claim to have been called at one point in time, there are very few, and most very meaningless. A god is not one of them.

So "No, I'm not," is his immediate response, and this is perfectly reasonable.

Kalirama places one hand beneath his chin and lifts, so that he is forced to meet her gaze. "Oh, yes you are." She smiles, bittersweetly. "You're our horseman. Our harbinger. You were meant to set in motion what would not even be known to you for many, many lives."

"That's--" Locus sputters for a moment. "I-I-- _lives?"_

"Yes," she says, pulling herself back into her chair. "You are currently on your third of many. You were not supposed to come into your power for several millennia." She glares into the middle distance, lips pursed. "You will not be held in any contempt for what happened here, because you could not have known. Genkins is the one who--"

"I'm sorry, hold on," Locus interrupts, finally coming to grips, and he seems only just now to realize that Wash and Donut are still behind him, gawking, dumbfounded, but very much alive. "Do you mean to tell me that at any time, I could have changed the course of my actions indefinitely? You-- you were all watching me and you let Felix and I kill hundreds of thousands of people?"

"Sam--"

Locus glares -- in a way that Kalirama notices is different than before, it's angry, it's betrayed, it's confused, and most human of all, it's very, very hurt -- and he discovers that him and his fellow gods have a very efficient way of communicating, where they say very little and mean an awful lot. He simply chalks this up to context clues, however, and continues to stare hauntingly as Kalirama shuts her mouth quickly and corrects. "Locus. You had to learn. You have to--"

_"Bullshit," _Locus snarls, and Wash has the vague thought that this is the first time he's ever heard him swear. "You let me gallivant around the universe murdering people this way and that for _educational purposes _without so much as a goddamn celestial sign?!"

Kalirama frowns. She has forgotten what it is like to interact with those who have newly come into power, and is remembering that she doesn't like it. "Locus, you need to learn your place," she growls lowly.

"You wouldn't sit by and watch as your five-year-old beats up all the other kids," he cries, "and I shouldn't get special treatment for being a.. a..."

She smirks with the realization that he simply can't say it. She points at Wash, who jumps a little. "You. You were supposed to get shot, and your friends destroyed the flow of time by erasing it. Hypothetically, the only way to fix it was for you to go back and ensure that you got shot. But you didn't. Why do you think that is?"

Wash stammers and shakes a bit and Locus takes a step closer to him. "It wasn't as though he wasn't--"

Kalirama holds up a hand. "I want to hear it from him."

"If I'm really a god, then you'll _listen to me when I talk!!__"_

They all go silent. His voice develops a low undertone as he speaks, and he doesn't realize until after he closes his mouth. "Oh, dear lord," he breathes, and the effect is still there. Kalirama sneers down her nose at him and crosses one leg over the other.

"Go on, then," she says, monotone. "Defend him."

Locus glances nervously between her and his two compatriots. Donut is currently worrying about Chrovos, and Wash is currently pondering on several questions he knows he'll never be able to ask. Locus is looking back at Wash, thinking about how guilty he felt knowing that if he'd turned around just a second earlier, moved a moment faster, this might not have happened. But it did, and now there's all this mess to deal with, and apparently it falls to him to fix this.

He finally turns to face Kalirama with a deep breath. (_You haven't taken a breath in minutes, _a quiet, deeply buried part of him says. _Do you not need to breathe?_)

"I am," he starts, forcing himself to say the words. "A god."

"Yes, you are," Kalirama replies patiently.

"And so are you."

"Yes," she says again.

"Wash was trying to get himself shot when I showed up," Locus says suddenly, and he has no idea how he knows that. "He wasn't trying to make a mess of anything."

Kalirama smiles. "Excellent work." She watches while he realizes that he pulled that information from Wash's head, and subsequently reels. "Would you like to see what else you can do?"

Locus turns over his shoulder and sees Wash and Donut, standing awkwardly but amazed some distance away, who did nothing wrong and certainly don't deserve to be in this confusing, terrifying situation, but regardless of them, he decides that he's tired. Tired of being bullied. By immoral commanding officers, by stupid mouthy mercenaries, by his own self-hatred. He's done bending over backwards to feel safety.

"Yeah, actually."

"Wonderful. Let's get started."


End file.
